arose the "star y-pointing" spire, like a voice of adoration; and then another would be raised in unison in some neighboring village, where they could see and communicate with each other in their silent language; and yet another close by among the hills; and presently, in full view from its summit, twenty more, perhaps,—till the good tidings were known through the whole country, and from hamlet to hamlet, over the streams and tree-tops, was thus echoed the great Te Deum of the land. For it was said among the people, in that antique spirit of worship, as Milton exhorted the birds in his Hymn of Thanksgiving,—
"Join voices, all ye living souls! ye spires,
That singing up to heaven's gate ascend,
Bear on your wings and in your notes His praise!"
It is a beautiful proof of the spirit of sacrifice which actuated the Masonic builder of the Middle Ages, that his fairest and most precious works were not confined to the great metropolitan churches and cathedrals, where they could be seen of men, but were frequently found in quiet and secluded villages, nestled among pastoral solitudes, far away from the gaze and admiration of the world. Though the spire of Salisbury was, perhaps, an epic in Masonic poetry, yet in humble hamlets of England, beyond her most distant hills, and amid many an unnamed "sunny spot of greenery," were idyls sung no less exquisite than this. Many a village-spire, of conception no less beautiful, arose above the tree-tops among the most untrodden ways. All day long its shadow lingers in the quiet churchyard, and points among the humble graves, as if, over this dial of human life, it loved to preach silent homilies on "the passing away," even to the simplest poor. It must be inexpressibly touching to meet with these beautiful forms in the lonely wilderness, where the ivy alone, as it throws its loving arms around them, appears to recognize their grace and all their tender significance. It is like the chance discovery of a good deed done in the darkness, or like a pure life spent in the sweet and serious retirement of a little hamlet, pointing the way to heaven for its scanty flock of cottagers.
It was the custom in those days, during the celebration of Mass, at the moment when the Host was raised, to ring a peculiar bell in the tower, in order that those not gathered beneath the consecrated roof might be made aware far and wide of the awful ceremony, and be reminded to offer up their devotion in unison. And we remember what Izaak Walton said of quaint George Herbert,—how "some of the meaner sort of his parish did so love and reverence Mr. Herbert, that they would let their plough rest when his saints'-bell rung to prayer, that they might also offer their devotion to God with him, and would then return back contented to their plough." Now it seems to us that the spire is a perpetual elevation of the Host, a never-ending lifting-up of the Symbol of Redemption, a consecrating presence to field and cottage, hillside and highway, ever ready to bless the accidental glance of wayfarer or laborer, and to make in the desert of his daily life a momentary oasis of sweet and hallowed thought. Its peaceful influence extends over the whole landscape and pierces to its remotest corners.
"A gentler life spreads round the holy spires;
Where'er they rise, the sylvan waste retires,
And aëry harvests crown the fertile lea."
It may be thought that St. Peter's cock, which so often answers the sunbeams from the spindly spire, and kindles and glitters there like a star, is rather empty of emblematic significance and soul-language. But what saith old Bishop Durandus?—"The cock at the summit of the church is a type of the preacher. For the cock, ever watchful, even in the depth of night, giveth notice how the hours pass, waketh the sleepers, predicteth the approach of day,—but first exciteth himself to crow by striking his sides with his wings. There is a mystery conveyed in each of these particulars: the night is the world; the sleepers are the children of this world, who are asleep in their sins; the cock is the preacher who preacheth boldly, and exciteth the sleepers to cast away the works of darkness, exclaiming, Woe to them that sleep! Awake, thou that sleepest! and then foretell the approach of day, when they speak of the Day of Judgment and the glory that shall be revealed, and, like prudent messengers, before they teach others, arouse themselves from the sleep of sin by mortifying their bodies; and as the weather-cock faces the wind, they turn themselves boldly to meet the rebellious by threats and arguments."
But it was on the Continent, especially in France, the Low Countries, and Germany, that the Gothic flower opened in fullest perfection; and it is here that we find the loftiest and most luxurious spire-forms. They were always the last part of the church completed, the finishing-touch, the last that was needed to perfection. The progress of the building of a cathedral thus embodied a beautiful symbolism. In most cases, the choir, or east end, the holiest part of the church, was the first erected, in order to sanctify and protect the high altar; and then, as the treasures of the church flowed in, after the expiration of years or centuries, the builders, tutored by a legendary science, and harmonized by a wonderful feeling of brotherhood, in the same spirit, perfected the designs of their predecessors, by leading out westward the long naves and attendant aisles, completing northward and southward the transepts, adding a chapel here and a porch there, glorifying the western front with the touches of divine genius; and when at last every niche was occupied with its statue of angel, saint, or pious benefactor, and the holy choir, with its apsis, had been re-adorned with the accumulated art of centuries, and glowed with the iris-light from painted windows,—when the mural monuments of bishops, warriors, and kings had thickened beneath the consecrated roof, and the whole structure had been hallowed by the prayers and chantings of generations,—then, at last, over the ancient tower arose the lofty spire; as if an angelic messenger had spread his wings at its base and mounted upward to heaven, shouting out the glad tidings of the completion of the House of God, and, as he arose, the voice grew fainter and fainter, till at length it melted into the sky!
The finest spires of Europe were erected as late as the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, upon towers prepared for their reception, usually, in much earlier times. This confidence of the old builders in the final completion of their structures is remarkable. They drew without stint on the piety of after ages,—a resource which has not unfrequently proved too feeble to realize their generous expectations. There are few cities in Europe which do not bear sad marks of this misplaced confidence. This is especially witnessed in the unfinished steeples. And, indeed, when we find that not only one, but two, three, four, or even five spires were sometimes required to flame upward from the same building, as in Caen Cathedral, we do not wonder that the kindling spark is often wanting. It would seem as if another fire must come down from heaven, as of old it did upon the first offering of Moses and Aaron, to inflame these censers, rich in frankincense and naphtha.
Now let us see what were the distinguishing attributes of the Continental spires. We know not why it was, but in the gray old towns of Belgium and the Low Countries there existed such exuberance of imagination, such an unbounded luxuriousness of conception, as created more images of Gothic quaintness and intricacy than elsewhere can be seen. If any architecture ever expressed the average of human thought, that of these towns is especially eloquent in its indications that their inhabitants were very happy and contented. Look at a print of any old Belgian town or street, and you will at once see our meaning. What a joyous upspringing of pinnacles and pointed roofs and spires! of no more earthly use, indeed, than so much pleasant laughter. There is no tower without its spire, no turret or gable without its pinnacle, no oriel without its pointed roof, no dormer without some such playful leaping up into the air. Every salient point attacks the sky with its long iron spindle, wrought with strange device and bearing a hospitable cup where the bird makes his nest; and every spindle sings and shrieks with a shifting vane,—so that the wind never sweeps idly over a Belgian town. This innocent and happy people did not frown through the ages from grim battlements, and awe posterity with stern and massive walls. But they loved old childlike associations and fireside tales. They loved to build curious fountains in commemoration of pleasant legends. They loved, too, the huge, delicious-toned bells of their minster-towers, and the sweet changes of melodious, never-ceasing chimes. They carved their Lares and Penates on their house-fronts very curiously, with sun-dials and hatchments, sacred texts and legends of hospitality. The narrow streets of Ghent, Louvain, Liege, Mechlin, Antwerp, Ypres, Bruges are thus full of household memories and saintly traditions. So it is not strange that a people whose daily hours were counted out with the music of belfries were fond of fretting their towers with workmanship so precious and delicate that it has been called "the petrifaction of music."
But before we proceed to tell in how florid a manner the Low Countries interpreted the simpler forms of spires, we shall describe generically in what manner not only they, but all the other European kingdoms, were indebted to the old Rhineland towns for some of these forms. When the bell-tower, in about the seventh or eighth century, began to be used in Germany, it at once received certain very important modifications on the earlier Italian campanile. The upper terminations of these latter were horizontal, on account of their flat roofs. Now in more northern climates, where the snow falls, these flat roofs would be unsafe and inconvenient. So we find that the first church-towers that arose in such Rhenish places as Oberwesel, Gelnhausen, Bacharach, Coblentz, Cologne, Bingen, "sweet Bingen on the Rhine," no longer ended in these horizontal lines, but arose in pointed shapes. Indeed, the Germans, who were great rivals of the Italians in those days, not only in matters pertaining to architecture, but to literature also, in the same independent spirit which induced them alone, of all civilized peoples, to retain through all time the cramped, angular letters of monkish transcribers, in preference to the fair and square Roman forms, took particular pride in avoiding horizontal lines entirely at the tops of their towers, as they did at the tops of their letters. Wherever they so occur, they are insignificant,—rather ornamental than constructive. Not so with the English; they kept the square tops to their towers, and contented themselves with the pointed superstructure. Let us see how Teutonic stubbornness arranged the matter. Each separate face of their towers, whether these towers were square or octangular, ended above in a gable; and from these gables, in various ways, arose the octangular pointed roof or spire. This circumstance, more than any other, tended to give a peculiar character to German Gothic. The simplest type of the gabled spire was magnificently used in the spire of St. Peter's at Hamburg. This was the finest in North Germany; it was four hundred and sixteen feet high, and, if still standing, would be the third in height in the world. But it was destroyed by the great fire of 1842. Many a traveller can bear witness to the sweet melody of the chimes that used to sound beneath it every half-hour.